Author: Katie Piatt

Meet Jenn! Each month we will introduce a PLA member through photos telling their Playful Learning journey. This month we feature Jennifer Smith. Jenn’s story features beer, balloons and sack racing, what else!

Upcoming Playful Opportunities:

• Our next Playful Learning Association face to face event is Nov 21st/22nd at the University of Manchester, focussing on the Role of Playfulness in Health and Wellbeing. Booking is still open for the last 5 4 3 places!
• If you like a Tweet Chat, mark your diaries for Weds Dec 18th, 8-9pm to discuss Playful Learning Technologies with https://lthechat.com/
• If you use games or playful learning in medical education, do consider putting an abstract in to Transform MedEd. The conference is being held in the awe-inspiring surroundings of the Royal Geographic Society. Abstract deadline is 14 October. There will be a chance to play Medical Monopoly the day before the conference, and quests, missions and mysteries during the conference.

Shout out from the #PlayLearn19 conference – If you attended the ‘Piece of Cake’ workshop, Amanda and Anne-Marie from Dundee would love some feedback from participants on what the thinking was behind the designs they produced in our session.

What else is coming up this year? Check the 2019/20 diary.

Reading and Writing: 
The PLA encourages you to submit your work to the Journal of Play in Adulthood. Any #PlayLearn19 attendees interested in publishing their research/practice/thoughts and outputs (in any form): the special issue of JPIA is open for submissions until Oct 31st.

Getting involved in the PLA!
If you would like to take a more active role in the PLA, please volunteer for the committee – we’d love to have your help!

The PLA is holding their first election for a new Chair this month. Every two years, one of the chairs will be rotated (after a four year term). Any committee member who has attended an event in the last year may nominate themselves – this year, nominees must take a photo of themselves doing something specifically playful to demonstrate their suitability (e.g. taking a balloon on an adventure, hunting for otters). These will be put to a vote on this website, resulting in an announcement at the November PLA meeting. Send your photos by Monday October 14th to the 2018/19 chairs Alex Moseley and Nic Whitton.

More: Full details and a list of tasks Committee members and Chairs are expected to undertake.

Until November, that’s all folks – remember to use #PlayLearn on Twitter to share your news and stay in touch.

Each month we will introduce a PLA member through 5 photos telling their Playful Learning journey.

Jennifer Smith, Instructional Design Officer, Durham University Business School

I was introduced to playful learning by Nic Whitton and went to my first conference in July 2019 and I haven’t looked back! Learning to give yourself and others permission to play in a safe environment is key. It is not all silliness but there is a time and place for silly, you just have to know when.

My first experience with designing something ‘fun’ or a game would be when I worked with Professor Christos Tsinopoulos to design and develop an adaptation of the famous MIT Beer Game for our online MBA Module Operations and Technology. This allows the students to understand and coordinate a supply chain but doing it online via email and discussion forums. It has a bit of role-playing and student collaboration with a hint of competition as the group with the least amount of inventory at the end – wins.

Here is a quick video we used as a debrief of a past student’s thoughts on the game:

I am currently taking the Introduction to digital game-based learning module at The University of Edinburgh and hoping to explore how we can build playful learning in an asynchronous environment. How can we bring together a cohort to play and learn to give them a better experience in creating social presence – I hope I can answer this in the future.

Thanks for sharing your story and your photos Jenn.

If you are unlucky, you might be selected as next month’s sacrifice chosen member – we will be in touch!

Hello Playful People – for those in the Education world it’s the start of another academic year…so with open arms we welcome you to this months round-up!

Upcoming Playful Opportunities:

• Our next Playful Learning Association face to face event is Nov 21st/22nd at the University of Manchester, focussing on the Role of Playfulness in Health and Wellbeing. Booking is now open and we’re asking for session ideas.
• What do you think about adult playfulness? Members are asked to complete this survey about the value of play in higher education by researchers at the University of Edinburgh.
• The next UK Play14 (unconference on play) is Sept 27-29th in London but also has other European dates coming up.
• For anyone in the Denmark area (or planning a trip) check out this digital/toy bootcamp event from Playtrack on 9th Sept in Aarhus:

What else is coming up this year? Check the 2019/20 diary – and look out for the bi-annual elections for PLA Chair coming up in October

What did you miss?

• The official photos from the 2019 Playful Learning Conference came out a few weeks ago, celebrated with a Twitter caption competition – here’s a selection of entries including our winner Liza Penn-Thomas (prize in the post!).

To continue the learning and playing over the year, our presenters are starting to add resources, challenges and thoughts: read them and comment on the PL19 Resources and Challenges page.

Reading and Writing: 
A new article from the Journal of Play in Adulthood. The PLA encourages you to submit your work!

• Ambiguity of (traffic) signs – Nina Luostarinen (University of Lapland)

Meet Sam! Each month we will introduce a PLA member through 5 photos telling their Playful Learning journey. This month we feature Sam Clarke, Research Assistant, Disruptive Media Learning Lab, Coventry University. Find out why Sam thinks she used to be a cat.

That’s all for now, to share your news in the October round-up, just comment below or use #PlayLearn on Twitter.

Each month we will introduce a PLA member through 5 photos telling their Playful Learning journey.

Samantha Clarke, Research Assistant, Disruptive Media Learning Lab, Coventry University

Thanks for sharing your story and your photos Sam.

If you are unlucky, you might be selected as next month’s sacrifice chosen member – we will be in touch!

The next Playful Learning Association meetup will be from 12pm on Thursday 21st November to 12:30pm on Friday 22nd November, 2019. We will be hosted by Jane Mooney at the University of Manchester. Activities will be on the theme of playfulness in health & wellbeing. Sign up now on EventBrite

Our theme will be the Role of Playfulness in Health and Wellbeing. We’d love to hear your ideas for activities in the comments – let us know below if you’d like to run an activity, propose a playtest or any ideas! Thanks

Venue – Committee room A, Ground floor, Stopford Building (Google map link)

A selection of hotels are recommended nearby:
£65.55 Ibis Manchester Centre Princess Street (Google map link)
£72.96 Holiday Inn Express Oxford Road  (Google map link)
£90.24 Crowne plaza Oxford Road (Google map link)

Hello Playful People – welcome to our first round-up and the official launch of our new website!

Upcoming Playful Opportunities:

• The next Playful Learning Association face to face event is Nov 21st/22nd at the University of Manchester. Booking will open in October.
• Game Library Camp – Leeds Central Library, Sat 9th November
  Member Darren Edwards says “our call for proposals is still open and it would be good to get a learning focused session” see: https://librarycamp.game.blog/
• What else is coming up this year? Check the 2019/20 diary – and look out for the bi-annual elections for PLA Chair coming up in October.

What did you miss?

• 4th – 6th April 2019 was the Counterplay Festival in Aarhus, Denmark – here’s a conference report from Jess Haigh
• 10th-12th July 2019 was the Playful Learning Conference in Leicester, UK. 3 days of inspiring ideas and discussion on learning. As Jenn said…

Reading and Writing:
Some new articles from the Journal of Play in Adulthood

• Giving Permission for Adults to Play – Andrew Walsh
• Book review for The Librarians’ Book on Teaching through Games and Play – Vicky Bird
• Book review for Playful Learning, Events and Activities to Engage Adults – Clare Thomsom

Fancy getting your work published? The PLA encourages you to submit your work!

Meet Giskin! Each month we will introduce a PLA member through 5 photos telling their Playful Learning journey. This month we feature Giskin Day, Principal Teaching Fellow, Imperial College London. Read Giskin’s story of penguins, puzzles and pirates.

That’s all for now, to share your news in the September round-up, just comment below or use #PlayLearn on Twitter.

Each month we will introduce a PLA member through 5 photos telling their Playful Learning journey.

Giskin Day, Principal Teaching Fellow, Imperial College London

Thanks for sharing your story and your photos Giskin.

If you are unlucky, you might be selected as next month’s sacrifice chosen member – we will be in touch!

You know playful learning works, but struggling to find the words to explain the approach to colleagues? Here’s a starter to 10 to help you – let us know what you think in the comments.

• Safe Failure Play enables the creation of safe learning communities and activities in which learners can take risks, fail, learn from that failure, and build resilience.
  
• Explore Possibilities Play supports creativity by enabling learners to inhabit other spaces, use their imaginations and explore new possibilities, identities and ways of being in the world.
  
• Collaborative Ideas Play breaks down barriers, it gets learners to collaborate and work together and this helps productivity and creativity.
  
• Empowerment Play gives learners agency to test, and decide, on their own direction and approach to learning.
  
• Memorable Learning Playful approaches can make content more ‘sticky’ and easier to remember. This leads to an improved student experience by enacting innovative and active pedagogies.

As well as a monthly round-up, this diary will hold a list of Playful Learning Association events for the coming year (Sept 2020 – August 2021).

Coming Soon

More events to be added as dates are announced – if you would like anything promoted here, leave a comment or tweet #PlayLearn

Each month we plan to provide a round-up on this site (and via email) of recent events, upcoming invitations, new articles of interest, gametest requests and other content of interest to you (hopefully!)

If you’d like us to include anything you’ve been to, are planning or just want to share, please comment below or use #PlayLearn on Twitter.